Amid concerns over U.S. President Donald Trump’s hard-hitting tariff policy, diversified Indian financial services company Motilal Oswal has suggested that India could strengthen its domestic industries and ramp up local production. Trump has a history of imposing heavy tariffs on India, including 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum imposed in 2018. The tariffs had an inimical effect on India’s trade with the U.S., with steel exports plunging 46% one year after the tariffs were announced. Meanwhile, India’s heavy reliance on oil ..read more

Iraq’s Council of Ministers last week approved the final version of BP’s US$25 billion+ contract with the Oil Ministry to develop the Kirkuk oil fields of Baba and Avana, and the neighbouring sites of Bai Hassan, Jumboor and Khabaz. This is the second huge deal signed by Western firms recently, with the other being the US$27 billion four-pronged project of France’s TotalEnergies. It is a remarkable achievement so far, given the steady erosion of the West’s influence across the country in the years following the removal of ..read more

Europe’s natural gas prices have declined in recent weeks after hitting a two-year high in February, easing concerns about the price Europe will have to pay this summer to prepare for the next winter. Dutch TTF Natural Gas Futures, the benchmark for Europe’s gas trading, hit a two-year high in the middle of February amid the first proper winter with prolonged periods of cold snaps since the 2022 energy crisis. Prices have retreated since mid-February as the heating season and winter are coming to an end, and solar and wind ..read more

The United States and European Union have demonstrated rising interest in Central Asia’s critical minerals in recent months. They additionally have shown interest in getting involved in the construction and operation of nuclear power plants to be built in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. The US quest for rare earths appears to be intensifying, underscored by a low-key tour by a US congresswoman, Carol Miller, a Republican from West Virginia, who has held meetings with high-profile Central Asian leaders. In a highly unusual protocol ..read more

Via Metal Miner   The world now waits to see how two aluminum market leaders, China and India, will react to U.S. President Donald Trump’s imposition of 25% tariffs on metal imports. Between them, these two nations produce about 50 million metric tons (MT) of aluminum yearly. However, China significantly outpaces India, alone producing about 43 MT per year. It is also worth noting that both countries also consume a vast percentage of the aluminum they make. Nevertheless, the tariffs have the potential to dramatically reshape the current ..read more

Iranian oil tankers seized by U.S. forces in the Gulf were using forged Iraqi documents, Iraq's oil minister Hayan Abdel-Ghani has reported. "We received some verbal inquiries about oil tankers being detained in the Gulf by U.S. naval forces carrying Iraqi shipping manifests," the oil minister said on state television late on Sunday. "It turned out that these tankers were Iranian ... and were using forged Iraqi documents. We explained this to the relevant authorities with complete transparency and they also confirmed this." The Trump administration ..read more

The general narrative in the media regarding artificial intelligence (AI) is binary. AI is either the greatest human invention ever, so powerful it will catapult us into an age of abundance for all and solve our environmental problems as well OR it is the most momentous human invention ever which is so dangerous that it could wipe out human civilization (and therefore must be tightly controlled or abandoned altogether). The trouble with binary narratives is that they fail to incorporate hundreds or even thousands of pieces of information that lead ..read more

Indian refiners will issue fewer tenders for the purchase of crude oil on the spot market in the coming month as Russian supplies bounce back, Reuters has reported. Previously, Bharat Petroleum CFO revealed that middlemen who supply Russian oil stopped offering cargoes following U.S. sanctions imposed by the Biden administration targeted Russian producers, tankers and insurers. The sanctions targeted Surgutneftgas and Gazprom Neft, two Russian oil firms that handle 25% of Russian oil exports. The two companies shipped an average of 970,000 bbls ..read more

Energy secretary Ed Miliband has ordered the National Energy System Operator to “urgently investigate” the power outage caused by a substation fire that shut Heathrow Airport on Friday. He is working with Ofgem and using powers under the Energy Act to formally launch the grid operator’s investigation. “We are determined to properly understand what happened and what lessons need to be learned,” Miliband said. “That is why, working with Ofgem, I have today commissioned the National Energy System Operator to carry ..read more

U.S. President Donald Trump has announced that any country that buys oil or gas from Venezuela will pay a 25% secondary tariff on trades with the United States, Reuters reported on Monday, with Trump claiming that Venezuela has sent "tens of thousands" of people to the U.S. who have a "very violent nature. Earlier this month, Chevron Corp. (NYSE:CVX) received a 30-day notice from the Trump administration to wrap up its operations in Venezuela. The deadline, set for April 3, provides the company only 30 days instead of the normal six-month wind-down ..read more